Tube Lines delays 'unacceptable' to commuters, says damning report

Friday 26 March 2010 09:21 BST

Tube passengers are enduring "unacceptable" disruption to services following the Government's "flawed" part-privatisation of the Underground, a report by MPs said today.

Despite more than 100 weekend closures of the Jubilee line, private maintenance company Tube Lines' work will be completed 10 months late, the report from the House of Commons Transport Committee said.

"The ongoing disruption caused to people who rely on the Jubilee line to go about their daily lives, and the cost to businesses, is unacceptable," the report declared.

The report also said the working relationship between Transport for London and Tube Lines had to improve - and criticised Mayor Boris Johnson.

"We are deeply concerned at the increasingly antagonistic relationship, stoked by the Mayor, between Transport for London, and LU on one side, and Tube Lines on the other. Relations between the parties have deteriorated further over the past year."

The committee's Labour chairman Louise Ellman said today: "We stand by our previous conclusions that the PPP is fundamentally flawed. Although the performance of Tube Lines has in some cases been exemplary, its failure to upgrade the Jubilee line on time marred its overall record badly.

"Furthermore, we are concerned that Tube Lines' practice of seconding staff from its parent companies may tempt Tube Lines to award business to contractors that do not possess the required expertise."

Tube Lines and the defunct Metronet were the two private companies given 30-year contracts to maintain the Underground under a public private partnership agreement in 2003. Metronet went into administration in 2007 and London Underground took over its responsibilities in May 2008.

"Some 20 months following the demise of Metronet, the Government is no nearer to being able to demonstrate that the PPP provides value for money for the taxpayer," said the committee.

London mayor Boris Johnson said: "This is the latest in a litany of damning verdicts on the PPP, and the failure of Tube Lines to deliver for London. This is a system that has wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, yet the Government continues to wash its hands of the mess it has created."

The committee's report today said that it was concerned "by indications that LU's work is up to one third more expensive than similar work undertaken by Tube Lines".

The committee said Tube Lines had to learn lessons from its poor performance on the Jubilee line and publish plans to avoid similar overruns on its projects on the other two lines for which it is responsible - the Northern and the Piccadilly.

Sharon Grant, chairman of transport passenger watchdog London TravelWatch, said: "Essentially, passengers do not care who does the work on the Tube and are completely uninterested in the contract wrangling. However, they do care about the disruption, particularly on the Jubilee line, and they do care that the Tube network is maintained and developed for the future."

LU managing director Mike Brown said: "This report confirms that the PPP is failing to deliver improvements to the Tube, value for money and is therefore failing to deliver for London."

A Department for Transport spokesman said: "The PPP has brought real improvements to the Tube as the TSC (Transport Select Committee) itself notes ...in some cases the performance of Tube Lines has been exemplary'.

"The delay to the Jubilee line upgrade is disappointing but Tube Lines will bear the cost, not the taxpayer, due to the penalties built into the PPP contracts."